After The Flood Comes The Freeze: "Tens Of Thousands Need Housing" Says Cuomo, As Nor'Easter Approaches

First the flood, now the freeze (and the lack of fuel and gas and heating just making it much worse). And for tens of thousands of residents of New York and New Jersey this means that as many as 40,000 will need to find alternative housing, especially ahead of Wednesday when a Nor'easter formation is expected to hit the Tristate area and bring even more freezing rain and cold to the region. From Reuters: "Tens of thousands of people affected by superstorm Sandy could soon need housing as cold weather descends on the state of New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday. Cuomo, in a televised press conference nearly a week after the storm hit the U.S. East Coast, said the fuel shortages are improving but problems will persist for "a number of days."" Elsewhere, and also from Reuters: "Victims of superstorm Sandy on the U.S. East Coast struggled against the cold early on Sunday amid fuel shortages and power outages even as officials fretted about getting voters displaced by the storm to polling stations for Tuesday's presidential election. Overnight, near-freezing temperatures gripped the U.S. northeast. At least two more victims were found in New Jersey, one dead of hypothermia, as the overall death toll from one of worst storms in U.S. history climbed to at least 112. Fuel supplies continued to rumble toward disaster zones and electricity was slowly returning to darkened neighborhoods after a storm that hit the coast last Monday. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it would be days before power is fully restored and fuel shortages end."

All of this will be exacerbated as a Nor'easter moves along the Eastern Seaboard and is expected to hit New Jersey and New York in several days:

A "significant" nor'easter is likely to hit Sandy-battered areas of the Northeast by Thursday, the National Weather Service said in an update Sunday.

FEMA and Red Cross officials have ordered more resources ahead of the storm, while New York City is dealing with a shortage of fuel oil and steam to heat buildings as temperatures began dipping into the 20s and power remained out for hundreds of thousands.

At the very least, the service's prediction center stated, there is "a very real possibility of heavy rain and strong winds along the coast from Virginia to Maine."

Snow is likely in the interior and some models "do bring some snow all the way to the coast as far south as Virginia," it warned.

That all of this is happening two days ahead of the presidential election is merely adding to the chaos:

President Barack Obama, neck-and-neck in opinion polls with Republican challenger Mitt Romney, ordered emergency response officials to cut through government "red tape" and work without delay to help affected areas return to normal.

Officials have expressed concern about getting voters displaced by Sandy to polling stations for Tuesday's election. Scores of voting centers were rendered useless by the record surge of seawater in New York and New Jersey.

New Jersey is allowing voters displaced by Sandy to vote by email. Some voters in New York could be casting their ballots in tents.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released on Sunday found that 68 percent of those surveyed approved of how Obama handled Sandy and just 15 percent disapproved.

"I'm not thinking about the election too much right now," said Frank Carrol, 59, a retired New York City transit worker who lives in Staten Island. He planned to vote, but did not know if his local polling station would even be open. "We'll stop by and see what happens," Carrol said.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie ordered county clerks to open on Saturday and Sunday to accommodate early voters and ensure a "full, fair and transparent open voting process."

And while most appear content with the crisis response to date, with the apex being Mayor Bloomberg's cancellation of the marathon due to massive popular outcry (we are confident all those who spoke up are now taking part in the recovery efforts), the DOE just announced that 25% of New Jersey is still without power. This led to Martial Law being declared in the town of Seaside Heights which has been totally destroyed, as we showed in the Hurricane Sandy before and after satellite pics.

We expect more regions of NJ to be declared uninhabitable in the coming days as the situation continues to deteriorate.

Good news overall. more devastation, more spending. GDP will go up. Load up on stock market everyone. Well good news for Krugman and Bernanke but bad news for the unlucky people who are going to die of hypothermia.

A Keynesian might say that is bullish for humanity - the more death and destruction means higher government spending on mass graves = higher GDP = more prosperity for everyone especially those who dig the ditches (graves) and those who fill them back in. Wealth was never easier to attain in the grand ol' USSA. Soon the ocean will turn to lemonade.

The GSEs Fanny and Freddy own a lot of vacant housing now sitting empty. The Federal Government should just dump all that inventory on the market in a d Dutch style auction for first pickings going to people whose homes were completely lost or condemned due to Sandy. Then the rest can be offered to 1st time home buyers and people who don't own any real estate. Then the leavens should be offered to anyone.

Not God but the SUN. It's completely natural and not unprecedented. We need to stop re-living the Book of Isaiah, that happened one time thousands of years ago, and keep expecting different results.

Who was it that said;

The greatest threat to our National Security is the financial collapse of our economy, and peoples ability to pay for natural disasters, that have been taken away from them by the Federal Reserve Corporation?

That would be me, over and over again. I don't even want to think about what would happen if California had a major earthquake these days.

Quoting WUWT reveals you to have zero analytic ability in matters pertaining to climate...

As for Sandy "significantly" strengthing directly from human intervention, do you have any idea of the energy in a system like Sandy? A hint, units suitable for thermo-nuclear devices are appropriate....

Re: WUWT. over the the past few years "Tony Willard" has been consistency the worst pundit out there, for example, polar ice

Some people disagee with me that government caused the fuel shortages by ordering price controls. If the gov said no one can sell an ounce of gold for more than the OFFICIAL PRICE ($42/OUNCE) would you hoard your gold or would you sell your stash for the government mandated price?

Well to answer his question, if those tanker trucks could get $10/gallon then NY and NJ would be crawling with gasoline trucks! But the governors wan't to punish the "price gaugers" and reduce supply. So the supply is reduced and people are upset. Are you freakin' kiddin' me?!

Mob mentality - people with a half or three-quarter's tank panicking and waiting in line to top off.......95 was full og tankers today and yesterday but every time they made a delivery, lines formed and stations pumped until dry. In two days everyone that wants gas will have a full tank and statiosn will be sitting on full in-ground tanks - nobody will be buying for a week. Meanwhile people waste 2 gallons in line or 5 driving around to get 10. Stupidity.

The joke is thta businesses opened last week when they didn't need to - forcing employees to sopend time and gas to get in - NYC should have had unnecessary businesses close until Monday.

Nonetheless, this may be the warning shot across the bow for the upcoming future. If you're a NYC cop who lives in Dutchess County or a secretary driving 40 miles to White Plains (Westchester County north of NYC), you're going to be facing a future that's NOT affordable. That 'own your own house on a half acre - no matter how long the commute to a job' days aare over. And the yuppie 'live in Battery Park or along the Hudson in Jersey City or Hoboken 2 feet above the seawall' urban lifestyle is just as irrational. No sympathy for the beachfront houses out on LI or in Jersey that NEVER should have been built. At least on the Outer Banks you have to raise them on pilings 20 feet up in the air so they have a chance of surviving storm surges.

I'm looking forward to the frozen dead body count in the coming winters due to global cooling and Grand Solar Minimum, hope some in your family freeze to death to teach you a lesson you'll never forget.

The sick thing about the global warming debate is that time will definitely tell who's right (or more likely how we are all so pathetically wrong). Like, well, the economy, there seems to be a million pieces of evidence floating around that things are... not working out and changing rapidly for the worse. In the meantime, please explain the recent rapid temperature rise in the ice cores, how it matches no other pattern before and how (coincidentally) it parallels with man's development of fossil fuels. Do not point to anomalies here and there but stick to the overall pattern and development because, well, we are talking about the whole earth. Please also tell us if man can affect his environment and environmental systems and whether or not the earth qualifies. Despite our never failing corruption and exploitation (like the carbon tax) is it that strange of a theory to suggest that if you locate the densest form of energy ever created over millions of years and burn half of it into the earth's atmosphere in one hundred that there might be some affect.

The earth has 97,000 Olympic size swimming pools full of water as each and every persons share, for all 7 billion people on the planet. Do the math. Burn all fossil fuel on the planet at the same time and you couldn't raise the temperature of that total amount of water 2 degrees, ever.

The temperature of the oceans heated by the Sun, is a major contributing factor in regulating the air temperature of the planet, and there is a lot of it.

“Just how much water is there on (and in) the Earth? Here are some numbers you can think about:

If all of Earth’s water (oceans, icecaps and glaciers, lakes, rivers, groundwater, and water in the atmosphere was put into a sphere, then the diameter of that water ball would be about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers), a bit more than the distance between Salt Lake City, Utah to Topeka, Kansas. The volume of all water would be about 332.5 million cubic miles (mi3), or 1,386 million cubic kilometers (km3). A cubic mile of water equals more than 1.1 trillion gallons. A cubic kilometer of water equals about 264 billion gallons.”

The question I have is:

If we burned all the known reserves of fossil fuels on the planet in one year, and used it exclusively for heating all waters on the planet, how much would it raise the current temperature of that amount of water through direct burning of those fossil fuels?

The "system" when healthy, like the economy, is a system of millions of checks and balances. A one degree increase in the overall earth temperature takes a LOT of effort and does wonders (or the reverse). We're not talking about your analogy - boiling water in a tea kettle, we're talking about a closed and heated system that has never come on this rapidly and will last for a long long time.

humans are arrogant but they're also great at lying, spying denying, and trying anything but the naked truth. So humans can have no "significant" affect on their environment? Just let all the nukes fly and powerplants meltdown. Then check your theory again.

What is truly hillarious is the fat bastards will be doing quite well. They have extra insulation and their bodies will start breaking it down for butrition. All as nature designed. Plus if they get a serious disease their bodies have enough rescources, fat, to help weather the sickness.

All those zero fat types are freezing and eating muscle because they have NOTHING to fall back on. When they catch a serious disease, then more than likely they die.

You show me a guy with ripped abs, and I’ll show you a guy very unlikely to survive the coming economic collapse. There are three scientific reasons for this:

#1) Having “ripped abs” is only achieved by shedding excess body fat and achieving a dangerously low body fat level (such as 5% for men).

#2) People with ribbed abs (i.e. very low body fat) have virtually no excess calories to keep them alive if access to food is suddenly limited.

#3) People with ribbed abs have no built-in insulation from the cold. A person with very low body fat is extremely vulnerable to hypothermia. This may be a life-or-death matter if an economic collapse arrives during the winter months and electricity or heating fuels are not available for extended periods of time.

Having very low body fat is dangerous to your survival

...

Scenarios where you’ll wish you had body fat

• If food is suddenly in short supply and you have to survive with a prolonged calorie deficit.

• If you’re forced to travel on foot for extended durations (such as days or weeks). You’ll burn fat along the way. If you don’t have sufficient fat, your body will start breaking down and burning your muscles.

• If you’re forced to sleep outside, possibly in a tent, where you need thermal protection from the elements.

• If you’re sleeping in a home or apartment, but the heat is cut off in the winter.

In each of these scenarios, some spare body fat actually adds to your survival potential.

Haha, i remember the first time i went to a cage fight, my friend and i tried to guess which guy would win before each fight. We always seemed to choose the beefy looking guy, and then the skinny guys would thump them.

cute, but fiskers catch fire, not Volts. Volts can use two fuels: gas AND electicity. Risk reduction and fuel flexibility are priceless in a disaster like this. Add a 2k watt inverter to the Volts and you get a free back up generator to keep the fridge on or a lifesaving heater going.

I can predict the future. Any fires that the volt will be accused of will be met with swift denials and the biggest attemp to cover up said fire(s) in one of the most massive conspiracies for the auto-industry.

And you paid an extra $20,000 for that technological marvel, and all you got was a heater or generator for your $20k. How many generators, heaters, gallons of gas, gallons of fresh water, groceries, guns and ammo, etc. could you have bought for your family with that extra $20,000 to be prepared for this disaster? You just proved the point about the stupidity of green technology.

Sure, electric cars are subsidized. However, isn't the oil industry subsidized too, with the largest subsidy being a bloated defense budget that preserves oil supplies in the Mideast for US corporations? Funny, but I really don't think we fought and lost a war in Iraq over electric cars. As I recall, wasn't it about something else, something black and well, oily?

My comment was solely about risk reduction and crisis management made more robust by having fuel options. In contrast to the present one strike and you're out petroleum monoculture. Please build your straw men with your own straw.

If you actually understood anything about Li chemistry you'd understand why Li batteries are so much more dangerous than Pb acid. (In fact they should not be allowed on aircraft since they are so easily converted to bombs.)

I'll summarize: Li + H2O = H2

H2 + spark or heat + O2 = explosion.

You're driving a sealed bomb. Any exposure to water (one of the omnipresence molecules in the environment) produces copious amounts of hydrogen gas, the same gas which exploded in the nuclear reactors in Japan. (In fact, without the conversion of water to H2 in the reactor cores there would have been negligible damage) Unlike hydrocarbon fuels like gasoline, H2 is explosive at all stoichiometries (any ratio of oxidizer, O2 to fuel, H2), so it is the most dangerous of all explosive gasses.

Every vehicle is a sealed bomb...gasoline is more energetic than batteries right? There are literally billions of lithium ion bombs floating around otherwise known as cell phones, tablets and laptops. Years ago there were a very few laptop battery fires. How about now? Crickets...

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. Yogi Berra

This is called exploitation and corruption of morals. Legitimate or not, anyone doing this is promoting this bullshit behavior as a means to an end. And we wonder why consistently end up in crisis situations like this? Well.. wonder no more. It's me, me, me, me..

Are you seriously trying to lay claim that a deduction in the gov't taking my money is some how exploitation? You sir, are fucked in the head. The gov't taking any form of income tax is criminal behavior. Kindly go seek psychological help.

(by Greg G) I'm in NJ and without power. I ran an extension cord from my Volt to my bedroom. I have sleap apnea so need the power to drive my CPAP machine. Also charging a few iPhones. My car is in a closed garage so waiting as long as I can to turn it on so the battery can take me through the night. Thinking of cracking my garage door in case the gas kicks on but it is pretty windy so not sure that is the best idea. I read that the engine would just turn on for 10mins or so each hour in another thread. Can anyone confirm that?

Last edited by Greg G; 5 Days Ago at 11:46 AM. next day... >Made it through the night on battery. Still have 20miles left. Storm is passed so can move car outside now. Have full tank of gas so should have power source for a good amount of time. Not sure when we will have power again.

Good news overall. more devastation, more spending. GDP will go up. Load up on stock market everyone. Well good news for Krugman and Bernanke but bad news for the unlucky people who are going to die of hypothermia.

But the blue states will likely still go blue even on reduced turnout. If popular vote was used to determine the winner nationally the votes in question might matter. With the electoral college not so much.

If the price rose to the $25 per gallon people are selling it online for, the lines would shorten a good deal, I'd bet. People would conserve fuel more if it cost more (except those who have enough money that price doesn't matter). Individuals and companies would be able to spend the extra money to bring in gasoline from outside the affected area to sell at a profit. As a result, the total supply would increase and the shortage would go away, and the price would gradually fall along with it.

Instead they INCREASED demand and REDUCED supply with their price controls. Isn't that what is causing the long lines?

Fail. I'm curious about how you would like to quantify how price controls increased demand of an inelastic good... and, further, one that is necessary in many respects for life (yes, even to obtain basic necessities and to heat residences). The gasoline would be extracted from the stations one way or the other... people can wait in line and pay something for it, or they can take matters into their own hands and steal it.

The entire matter is not quite as simple as you would have us believe.

Keeping prices unnaturally suppressed encourages people to go buy more which they WOULDN'T do if prices were to be free market (ie, "price gauging"). Perhaps in the free market the prices would be $8.00/gallon. Chances are that people would shy away from the fuel stations - but if you really needed the fuel then you would have to pay more.

Paying more is a result of a natural disaster - there is nothing one can do about that natural disaster. It just IS. Nobody can snap their fingers and make the bad consequences go away.

But by forcing a reduced price it means that fuel stations will more quickly sell out of gas, which means they will RESTRICT the amount of fuel per person. In addition since the price of fuel is ONLY allowed to be not more than 10% higher (instead of 100% - 200% higher in the free market) that means LESS people from other parts of the region will make the effort to divert their tanker trucks for a measly 10% return on investment when they would gladly do it for a 100% - 200% return.

The key is this: GOVERNMENT can only DIVERT one tradgedy for another. It can make fuel more affordable but at the same time it has the UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE of making fuel UNAVAILABLE.

So government is damned if they do, and damned if they don't - but "We-The-People" always DAMEND that the government just "DO SOMETHING!!!" - and they did, making the problems worse.

Again, FAIL. You did not address a single point that I made. I understand that the government cannot provide the answer. However, this is a far stretch from increasing demand of an inelastic good, like gasoline, especially in the winter time and during a natural disaster.

In short, you are not backing up your thesis... you're changing the subject.

If the price of gasoline wsa $25 per gallon instead of $5, then maybe instead of 4 houses running 4 generators, the people would get together and use one generator, and maybe they only buy 2 gallons instead of 4.

I think you are using the word "demand" differently. Yes, people will still have a DESIRE for gasoline even if they cannot afford it, but (as I understand it) the term DEMAND usually refers to the amount that is actually sold at the current price.

It typically refers to someone with both the want and the means to obtain a good or service. In this instance, being the commodity it is and under the circumstances, we have to presume that anyone with a good leg and a busket has the means. We're in a situation that actually paying for a good or service has nothing to do with the means to obtain it (hence the national guard, et al). There seems to be a problem here whereby people are talking in circles... If we can actually dispense with the college textbooks and apply the logic to the present situation, I suspect we'll find some common ground. In this situation, desire is effectively equal to means.

Also, please quit trying to change the subject... the guy unequivocally stated that the demand was caused by price controls... I'm pretty sure modern life caused the demand and it's fairly consistent and inherent... at least for us americans. It's time to retreat and retrench rather than keep moving the goal posts. [aside from the fact that price controls are inherent in the notion of gasoline given the dollar:oil peg and our penchant to ensure the spice flows... it seems incredibly strange to only whine about them on the back end].

Your use of "FAIL" after using "fail" reminds me of Americans who assume if they speak more slowly and loudly non-English speakers will understand them. Though I guess people who use "fail" in the first place are probably the type who populate the latter group.

Are you still harping on this shit? Realistically, do you think that the posters on this blog can't understand the mechanisms and avenues that would occur, eventually, if the price was allowed to rise more? It is a complete and total red herring... that giant whoosh noise is the discussion the rest of us are having...

The simple fact is that the legislation was put in place AFTER shortages occur... in other words, SHORTAGES OCCURRED BEFORE THE DUMBASS LEGISLATURE GOT INVOLVED... what you're talking about needs a longer timeline to come into play...

You presume that the market works perfectly and instantly at all times. This is a complete and total misnomer. Many of the people on this blog actually make their livings exploiting these market inefficiencies and delays. You have to put the textbook down and look out the window. With the small timeline we've had, and given the totality of the circumstances, price controls had not a thing to do with the shortage.

You're simply trolling at this point given your answer above stating that price controls exacerbate the situation rather than cause it... please be consistent if you're going to troll. There are plenty of good trolls on this blog to learn from...

> So a "shortage" has nothing to do with how many people can get the fuel they want/need, and has only to do with the pricing?

How does the government lowering prices avert a "shortage"? In a hurricane/natural disaster BAD FUCKING THINGS HAPPEN... and that results in prices going higher... I'm so sorry but that's just the nature of natural disasters. BUT along comes government and MANDATES that NOTHING BAD HAS HAPPENED TO PRICES and guess what.... fucking shortage. No matter how hard government tries to play God, they can not magically make gasoline just appear at the pumps. The ONLY WAY is for prices to increase and the free market will divert fuel to the higher priced area for PROFIT and then supply will increase, and prices will eventually come down.

God this is such fucking kindergarten economics... and to think I have to freaking explain it here on ZeroHedge! Shit this country is fucked!

(Sorry blunderdog, I'm not usually so harsh, it's jus that this is so elementary simple.... nothing personal with you personally)

Moving the goal posts bud. Your initial premise was that price controls CAUSED the shortage. Now you're arguing about whether price controls are effective or meet their intended goals. Big difference. Further, the market does not work perfectly efficiently at all times. (at best, it would take days+ to begin the fuel arbitrage operations and work out the associated logistics; in other words, there would still need to be a shortage to signal market participants to supply more fuel). Also, see post below.

"Further, the market does not work perfectly efficiently at all times. (at best, it would take days+ to begin the fuel arbitrage operations and work out the associated logistics; in other words, there would still need to be a shortage to signal market participants to supply more fuel)"

Days? How long does it take to drive from North Carolina to New Jersey? You think if people could make thousands of dollars per day transporting gasoline from A to B, they would not call in sick to work and do it?

Well, presuming all of the infrastructure was still in place AND the demanding public could get to the newly transported fuel, then sure... probably wouldn't take too long. However, I don't think the academic textbooks contemplate all of the variables involved and the actual answer is vastly more complicated.

I didn't say it did. My perspective is more common sense and less theoretical. A "shortage" is when people are unable to get the amount of fuel they want/need. (Getting into elastic vs. inelastic demand is beyond the kindergarten level of economics you're comfortable with, so we can leave that stuff for a future discussion.)

Your definition of "shortage" appears to be contingent on PRICE--so that if the price of oil (for example) goes to $2billion per barrel, there'd be no shortage in your world.

I don't think that's a useful model in this case. As an example: even if it were the case that "the market" was prepared to pay $200 trillion for a pet dinosaur, there'd STILL be a shortage of them to go around.

At least, it's be a shortage from *my* perspective. If I'm understanding your logic, it seems you'd say there'd be no shortage of dinosaurs at that price-level.

Touchdown... There is a lot of economic discussion in this thread that can't make it past the textbook into the real world... the entire concept of "all else equal" apparently hasn't sunk in... [hint: all else equal doesn't have shit to do with the real world]. The theories have to be applied within the appropriate context. School is good for producing regurgitating automatons and debt... not much else.

Democrat governor Cuomo and Republican governor Chris Christie created those long lines for fuel in New Jersey and New York by imposing price controls - this led to fuel shortages and long lines.

This is leading to a free market (black market) price for fuel of at least $8/gallon up to $25/gallon.

Bullshit. Panic, lack of preparation, and a fucking hurricane lead to fuel shortages and long lines... Do you really think that people would sit idly by while gas rose to $25/gal.? Either you make it a price people can afford or you get it taken from you... choice is yours.

Price controls at a price point that is really high already, in this particular situation, did not create any hoarding incentives and, therefore, did not cause any shortages. It's as much of a supply chain disruption and infrastructure problem as anything... and bands of zombies behaving in conjunction with their natural character.

Unless you're asserting that these politicians created the storm and mandated that all of the service stations pull their trousers down and bend over waiting for the hurricane, then I think you're barking up the wrong tree. The price control laws associated with gasoline and "emergencies" were created as REACTIONARY policies. The long lines and fuel shortages are a common occurrence during any storm, etc. In other words, you've got your cause an effect backwards or, at the very least, have your cause wrong. Whether or not the price controls work at all is another debate altogether (they don't, but we don't need to get into that).

Relax. What's wrong with letting those who have fuel sell it to those who need it at free market prices? If someone wants to sell a gallon of gasoline for $5,000 per gallon then almost everyone would not buy.... but if someone was to wait in line for 6 hours to buy gasoline for $4.20/g and then resell that same gallon to someone at the end of the line for $8.00 that would be worth it for BOTH PARTIES. So that means the natural price for gasoline is $8/g, so why not let the fuel station sell their fuel for natural prices? Do you honestly believe that unnaturally low prices causes an alleviation of hurt in this natual disaster situation?

Again, changing the goal posts. I've never argued that it is wrong or made any other value statement regarding allowing the market forces to do what they may. Please address the issues. Please actually attempt to back up your thesis.

The simple fact is that price controls are the result of fuel shortages, not vice versa... it's an attempt by the government to ration and prohibit what is perceived to be price gouging. Needless to say, your cause and effect is backwards given public policy is reactionary. [again, whether or not the goverment's actions are actually helpful does not have anything to do with your assertion that the shortages are caused solely by government involvement].

Your thesis is also dependent on the totality of the circumstances, including the particular good in question... instead of receiving a tailored analysis, we're all getting an intro to micro generic answer. Yes, in an academic vacuum without any variables, you might be right... however, for your thesis to be fruitful, you'll need to actually apply it to the present situation. Your reluctance to do so is at the expense of credibility...

"Either you make it a price people can afford or you get it taken from you... choice is yours."

There are soldiers and police guarding the gas stations.

I think it would be more appropriate to say that the government actions have prolonged and exacerbated the shortages, rather than creating them. BP and Shell are responsible for the shortages themselves, as they did not take the preparations that Hess took to ensure supply. Any bets on how loyal customers will be to Hess this time next year?

I think it would be more appropriate to say that the government actions have prolonged and exacerbated the shortages, rather than creating them.

Fucking bingo... why not say this initially and save us all a bunch of responses... it's OK to say that he's wrong and just move on... quit trying to mold his thesis into something that works. It doesn't... DOA.

PS, there were plenty of the same during katrina... all of this is merely the illusion of control... once the rioting starts in earnest, there will be nary a soul that can contain it. Even if they're at the gas stations, will they be watching every apartment? Every generator? Every automobile? Please...

"Either you make it a price people can afford or you get it taken from you... choice is yours." More entitlement mentality.

When price goes up, people find a way to have product to sell, even if they have to transport it some distance. That's how supply and demand works. When demand is high, but supply low, the price goes up, therefore making it practical to bring in a thousand gallons of gas from a few hundred miles away.

If someone tries to just take it 'cause it's too expensive or they think they are owed, then that's when the 'armed society is a polite society" clause kicks in.

Actually it isn't... that's when the government comes in and confiscates all of the weaponry and then the lord of the flies sets in. Presuming of course, that the society we're actually talking about wasn't disarmed prior to the hurricane anyway (NYC).

I'm not sure why you're so desperate to try and discuss supply and demand issues that we're all familiar with and understand... throw out the textbook and look out the window... the real world is a bit different... the neat theories might just have an incredible amount of exceptions everyone failed to mention.

Bullshit ! the lines are caused intially due to the majority of gas stations without power so they could not pump which concentrated the demand at a minority of stations which caused long lines - coupled with power out at distribution centers and refineries limited new supplies to stations with power

The gas doesn't "magically disappear" when the power goes out. It's still sitting right there in buried 10,000 gallon tanks waiting for someone smart enough or desperate enough to improvise and overcome.

Electric fuel pump and a few feet of fuel line. I'd be willing to bet that a few of those stations have already been hit by someone with no college education but a will to obtain some gas and a bit of smarts.

""Violations are punishable by civil penalties of up to $10,000 for the first offense and $20,000 for the second and subsequent offenses. Each individual sale of merchandise is considered a separate and distinct event.""

Tell that to the gas station owners... pure propaganda my ass. If I owned a gas station I'd SHUT THE POWER OFF TOO - especially if I was an Indian selling to a nigger or a wigger - which is 99% of the people in New York other than Jews.